The Art of “Skipping Around,” or Writing Out of Sequence

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When other writers ask me if I’m a plotter or a pantser, I usually tell them, “I’m a little of both, but I’m also skip around.” By “skipping around,” I mean that I work on whatever scene I’m picturing clearest, even if it’s at the end and I haven’t begun Chapter One yet.

Yes, I write my first drafts out of sequence. With my current manuscript, the first scene I wrote appears one-third of the way through the story. Then I wrote the first chapter shortly afterward, followed by the climax scene a few weeks later. Now I’m in the process of “filling in the blanks” between the story’s middle and the climax. I even skip around when drafting my blog posts, including this one.